July 27, 2026 • 17 mins
Willie talks with attorney Steve Goodin about the proposed tax increases to help fund Cincinnati Schools.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Billy Cunningham, the great American, Welcome to this a great
Monday afternon in the tri States, and the music festival
happened seemingly without too many rights. Too many people beat
up to within an inch of their life. But we're
not sure. Have to wait for the video to come out,
because if last year's video had not come out, we
know nothing about Alex Schravinsky nor Holly, we wouldn't know
(00:27):
anything about it. But the video is there thing that
went national and at this point we have no indication
a similar thing that happened. Plus Reds Baseball kicks off tonight,
covered starts about six oh five.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This is the most important.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How many times have I said this nine game homestand
of the year got the Cleveland into Guardians in town
for three, then Pittsburgh and Olivia Dunn comes to town
and then three with Athletics. That's nine games and the
trading deadlines a week from today, August third, we'll see
if the Reds are buyers or sellers. But until then,
as your Menno, tonight at the board meeting Cincinnati Bordevich Ocasion,
(01:00):
that's going to be a big powwow. How and where
to increase taxes based upon the voter's okay. It could
be a seven mil property tax, it could be an
eight mil property tax, could be an earn income tax
spanning five years at zero point seventy five percent on
top of everything else. So if someone's rich, like Tony Bender,
he'd be paying an additional about one thousand dollars a
(01:20):
year in income tax to this school board. Right now,
property taxes are not so popular, but let's face it,
income taxes are as Many residents of the city don't
pay income tax, but we all pay a property tax.
So let's see where Steve Gooden is on this. Steve Gooden,
a great lawyer in the Tristate, also was on Cincinnati
City Council.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think you live in the Clifton area.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So when this thing is on the ballot in November,
Steve Gooden, are you in favor of the seven mil,
the eight mil or the earned income tax? Rich guys
like you would pay a bundle. Give me a full report,
which one do you like?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
If any I don't.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Like, I don't like anygether to be candid. This's a
kind of game. I'm not I don't know that I'm
as a rich guy. But I'll tell you that if
they particularly go that earnings tax way, I think that's
going to be a deeply, deeply unpopular That will be
a very cynical move on their part, because you're right,
probably roughly forty percent of the city, if not more,
it really doesn't pay income taxes because of their income level.
(02:19):
So that would be one that would target directly people
like me, And it's really who frankly don't use the schools.
You know, I don't semi gets to the CPS because
I'm concerned with the quality of what they do. And lucky,
I'm in a position where I can, I can have
other options, but deeply unpopular. And I'm telling you there's
great fatigue on property taxes, not just here but statewide.
(02:41):
You know, we're one of the few few, but one
of the states that doesn't have any kind of relief
for senior citizens. There's a homestead exemption in a lot
of states, we don't really have a meaningful one in Ohio.
There's a movement statewide, as you know, to do away
with property taxes all together as a mechanism to fund schools. Particularly.
It's something that's been that the Court's been wrestling with
(03:03):
for many, many, many years. But look, my sense is
everybody's fatigued. I mean, we know the Children's Services Levey
is probably going on, and that's not an insignificant ask.
So there's going to be a lot of talk right now.
And I think between the Children's Services Levy, they're probably
being a property tax, Lovey. It has to be a
property tax. The school board is probably going to give
(03:23):
this income tax option a serious look. There's only a
handful of school income taxes in Cincinnati area. Wyoming has one,
it believe in the Indian Hill and Marymount have them.
But there's not been a city of this size of
Cincinnati that's actually done an education based income tax in
a long, long, long time. So it will be a
major adjustment for people if they do it. It will
(03:46):
not be good for business. It will affect not just
city residents but people who have their businesses in the city,
and that's a crucial part of it. So if you
live in Madeira but work downtown, you're going to be
paying for CPS schools on top of that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
An addition to an addition, addition to madeir schools at
wherever you live. If you and they're going to be
very aggressive collecting the income tax and people like you
because you're a Putts, you live in the city, have
an income, don't send your kids to public schools, but
you bring up the children's services Levy. I'm looking at
my recent tax bill from Jill Schiller, who's the as
(04:21):
you know, the the hoornor or the treasure of the
Treasure of Hamilton County. Here's what I pay for you
ready for this list. I pay for the Joint Vocational School.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
What is that, Well, that's where they teach trades and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
How about the County General Fund, We know what that is.
More or less, I pay for the public library. I
paid for the Family Services and Treatment Levee. I paid
for the Health Hospital Care Engine levee. I pay for
the mental health levee. I pay for the Developmental Disabilities levee.
I pay for the park levee. I pay for the
Crime Information Center Levee. I pay for the Children's Services Levey.
(05:02):
I pay for the Senior Services Levey and the zoo.
On top of all that, an addition of my school district,
which is Indian Hill Schools, which are pretty good. In
addition to my township how many levees at number one,
levees never go down to defeat correct, And number two,
why don't I have so many levees?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, it just happened over the years. And look, it's
a terrible way to do business. I mean, it's something
that it's not just Cincinnati, unfortunately, there's a lot of
big metro areas in the state that have just increasingly
offloaded all these public services onto uh, you know, onto
the homeowners. And they know they can do it. And
as you pointed out, they know that there are people
who aren't paying income taxes or paying property taxes because
(05:43):
they're runners, are on fixed incomes or on public assistance.
They can vote these things in UH, and people like
you and me who want to question where the money's
going and whether we really need them or whether it's
fair our voices get drowned out. And it's very very
rare that you actually see an organized anti levee political
campaign in this area. I mean typically when they go
(06:05):
to these things, they have corporate money, they have nonprofits
behind them, they have dark money and five to one
c threes and fours supporting the campaigns, and anybody who
wants to raise any kind of voice and opposition get
swamped out. So you have this kind of weird situation
where you have people like you know, myself or Tom
Brickman over and out look at who's done this for
(06:25):
years and tried to oppose these levees and educate people.
We're supposedly fighting for the wealthy class, but we're the
ones who are underfunded when it comes to the political
camp day because all these people who all the vendors,
all the contractors, all the people who get money off
these levees, they come out real hard and they spend
money to get them passed and push through. And so
(06:46):
it's a grim situation I think for taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And looking at the twelve special levees that we voted on,
the most expensive is children's services, and now, according to
Alisha Reese and others, that's going to be doubled because
there's so many children with that functional parents who pay
for all that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I look at my recent tax bill.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm paying for vocational schools, I'm paying for the library,
I'm paying for drug treatment, I'm paying for mental hospitals,
I'm paying for developmental disabilities. I'm paying for the parks
that I never attend. I'm paying for the nine to
one to one center, I'm paying for children's services about
the double I'm paying for senior services. Hell, maybe I
need a few of those services. Then I'm paying for
(07:25):
the zoo, which I've never been to. So those are
the things that I'm paying for now. Secondly, I'm glad
you brought that up in the school system. I had
on Eve Bolton about a week ago. She's on the
school board and she's somewhat functional, she has lucid moments,
and she was a teacher at Wyoming for like twenty
five or thirty years, and she gave me some stats
in the school district. Are you ready for some facts?
(07:48):
William Augley thirty four five hundred kids. But I've got
thirty four thousand, five hundred. There's about three thousand that
are chronically homeless. There's two thousand who have US special needs,
and each one needs a special needs program. That's about
five thousand. Add on top of that about four thousand
who have language difficulties. It's called EESL English Second Language,
(08:12):
and they're seventy seven to zer languages and different dialects
in the school system. So you got about add up
those numbers there's about eight or nine thousand kids. Either
they're either homeless, they have special needs, or English is
the second language. They can't understand what teachers are saying.
That means every kid's got to have someone with them
(08:32):
to kind of translate what's being said. That's about nine
thousand kids. Of the rest, about forty eight percent or
chronically absent from school. Add on top of that, seventy
percent of black boys are chronically absent. So I said
to her, twenty five thousand or so per year per kid,
and Cincinnati publics are twenty five thousand, and you have
(08:55):
situation eight to nine thousand either are not present, or
have special needs, or understand what's being said, or homeless.
You can and a child's not responsible. If they're homeless,
you can imagine how kids life is. If you're homeless,
you measure when the kid's life. If you have special needs,
you can imagine what a kid's life is like when
you can't understand the English, have no idea what's being said.
(09:15):
And then that's about nine thousand of the thirty four thousand,
and of the rest a chunk almost half are chronically absent.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Do you want to pay for that?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I mean, no, you don't want to pay for that,
and more importantly, you don't want to send your functional
kids into that situation. And you know, I hear a
lot of people in my neighborhood a little over here
in clipping new brag, but ah, I send my kids
to CPS much. Yeah, but you send your kids to
Walnut Hills where you have to test in, or SCPA
or the Fairbee School. There are some good you know,
some some pockets, some really good schools here, but by
(09:46):
and large, the CPS is being forced to serve as
those teachers are being forced to serve as social workers,
not educators. And it is a hard thing to pay for,
and it's a hard thing to stomach, and it raises
real questions. But we know what, just what the hell
we're doing here? Because I mean, you're right when you're
talking about like upwards of you know, three to four
percent or maybe more of the students that don't even
(10:06):
really speak English, aren't fluent in English. What's that going
to do to the overall instruction in any given classroom.
Of course, you're going to be teaching down to the
people who are who are struggling the most. So it's
not a recipe for success. It's a really hard thing
to defend. I do feel for a lot of these
teachers that I really feel for a lot of these
kids who have been placed in this awful position by
their parents. But you know, right now, it's going to
(10:30):
be a very hard ask for people. But I predict
it's one of these versions is going to go on
that levee or on the ballot tonight. I can smell it, and.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
It's going to pass. Right If it doesn't pass, of course,
what choice do you have you vote for it. I
don't think a CPS levee has failed in a long time.
It's going to pass, and then you kick the ball
down the road. You're going to still have large number
thousands of kids that are home. It's not their fault.
Thousands of kids of special needs, not their fault. Thousands
of kids don't show up in thousands of kids that
(10:58):
don't speak in the English.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That is it's daycare.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You send your kid the most of the skills, probably
eighty percent of the schools and CPS our daycare. And
then they get to be eighteen years old and then
they get a piece of paper, Okay, you graduated, go
into the world.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Then what happens, Well, you have a piece of paper
that isn't worth anything. They have no skills. We do
have excellent vocational skills, but they're not particularly aggressive and
pushing kids into that vocational path. You know, you notice
that you pay that in your property taxes every year.
They do a really bad job, I think in my
view of selecting kids and putting them on that track.
(11:34):
But at the end of the day, of course, it's
all going to pass because I mean, you know, a
lot of the people who are voting for the stuff
aren't going to pay for it. I mean, my daughters
are lucky enough to go to Ursuline Academy, and if
I could have voted that you paid that tuition, I
would have, you know, I mean, that's just human nature.
You know, if you're not paying it, why not. That's
another problem that's unfortunately what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I bring this up to Eve Bolton, which is the
Boucher program. I would assume you know what's going on
in life. You can get thousands of dollars every year
from the State of Ohio for your kids not to
go to CPS, to go to Urthline.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And she says that's not fair. What would you say
about that one?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well, I'm just saying here, here's the thing. I think
I pay enough taxes and as there's a certain point
when you're at chute because your children is just like
like you know, picking your doctor or picking your lawyer
or picking you know whatever. You're a consumer and if
you don't like the product, you ought to be allowed
to pull at least some of your money away and
to try to do something with that and to try
(12:31):
to like you know, look out for your own kids
at a certain point in time. So you know, it's
just not you know, like like Eva say, I've known
her for years. She's one of the more seen people.
But like they they in their mind, the charter school
concept and the voucher concept is just evil and it's
depriving them of everything. And the other thing, the school
board is being incredibly aggressive these days and going after
(12:54):
property tax valuations at the border Revision are really really
being aggressive like never I like I've never seen MI
twenty some years of practice, and particularly on these older
commercial buildings, you know, wanting these in my view, very
inflated values, and if you've pushed back, you're kind of
portrayed as like a tax cheat or something of that nature.
You know, they have to understand that this is all
(13:15):
part of the puzzle about why people want to do
business here, particularly out of town companies that might want
to invest here. They look at us like we're crazy.
If you go up to Columbus, I can tell you
Columbus is growing. For all its problems. They're growing at
a much faster rate than we are. And it's because
the school board and their warriors are at the table
ever at the beginning of any kind of conversation with
a new business that wants to come in, where they
(13:37):
talk about abatements and or and what the tax burden
is going to be. Here. It's very adversarial, not just
with the taxpayers, not just against people like me who
might want to send their kids to parochial schools, but
also against just the property owners, particularly commercial property owners.
It's a really nasty environment right now.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Is save goodin When you were on city council you
dealt with us. I'm looking at a story from the
Los Angeles Times. The headline is badge to worse. Chief
of Police says to the city of Los Angeles, we
need four thousand more cops immediately. They're four thousand cops short.
When I look at NYPD, they're about five thousand cops short.
(14:15):
When I look at our city of Cincinnati, they're about
two to three hundred cops short.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Can't cover the shifts. The defund the police movement is
alive and well.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
For those who say we don't have to defund the police,
Cincinnati has defund the police movement. It's called not even
enough cops and we're in the hell out of them
and they want to get out as soon as possible.
And in LA the big city Chicago, they are four
thousand cops short. Also, it's called defund the police by
making their job so difficult that young Americans don't want
to sign up to do that kind of work. And
(14:46):
so I understand from your law practice you often find
yourself in Los Angeles. Please explain what happens to a
city like New York that has about a mile and
a half of homeless on forty second Street. To Los Angeles,
they're and cops short, which is a crisis. Cincinnati two
to three hundreds short, it's a crisis. There could have
been a terrible beat down during the music festival over
(15:08):
the weekend but no cops are patrolling, and secondly, no
videos arise yet, so we don't know what happened. What
is your experiences in Los Angeles when they're four thousand
cops short, much like Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, let me tell you there are whole sections of
downtown Los Angeles right now that you don't go to.
I mean, it's actually worse than New York in my
view in terms of the homeless encampments. I mean, there
are whole city blocks that are taken up with homeless encampments, tents,
things of that nature. It's absolutely horrifying. You know, there's
(15:43):
open their drug dealing, there's people using drugs out in
the open. I've seen people shooting up, shooting things into
their veins, you know, while they're there. It's just a terrible, terrible,
terrible situation. And it's not just in downtown. You can
go to places even near Beverly Hills, you know, and
find homeless encampments there where they either don't have the
(16:04):
will or the resources to break them up, and it's
just what happens. And I'll take you here. I mean,
I know the city's line is, we're about one hundred
and fifty two hundred cops short. We're probably more like
four hundred cops short because they are not represent that
compliments of two thousand and five. And you know, we
have a lot more residents and a lot more things
going on downtown. So I mean he he said. Ken
(16:25):
Kobert says this all the time. There are knights when
there's only two or three officers patrolling the entirety of
over the Rhine just because of staffing. So when something
bad happens, they you know, they just don't have the people. Well,
the Democrats are a diffle situations. The Democrats, Steve good
are defunding the police. They don't call it that because
politically that's not saleable. But by not hiring cops, by
disrespecting cops, by not promoting cops, by having massive amounts
(16:49):
of overtime, good for the wallet, bad for the mind
and the heart and the soul of a cop. They're
defunding the police through a different mechanism. And that's because
they make being a police officer very difficult in every
major America. Steve Gooden, we got to run great conversation. Well,
look forward tonight to the vote.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I predict it's going to be an income tax to
tax guys like you and Tony Bender as opposed to
property taxes but are fundamentally unpopular.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I absolutely agree. Thank you for the time, and God bless.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
You and God bless America. Steve Gooden, lawyer and also
a former council member and Moore. Let's continue with more
Red Spaseball tonight on news radio seven hundred WLW.
Billy Cunningham, the great American, Welcome to this a great
Monday afternon in the tri States, and the music festival
happened seemingly without too many rights. Too many people beat
up to within an inch of their life. But we're
not sure. Have to wait for the video to come out,
because if last year's video had not come out, we
know nothing about Alex Schravinsky nor Holly, we wouldn't know
(00:27):
anything about it. But the video is there thing that
went national and at this point we have no indication
a similar thing that happened. Plus Reds Baseball kicks off tonight,
covered starts about six oh five.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
This is the most important.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How many times have I said this nine game homestand
of the year got the Cleveland into Guardians in town
for three, then Pittsburgh and Olivia Dunn comes to town
and then three with Athletics. That's nine games and the
trading deadlines a week from today, August third, we'll see
if the Reds are buyers or sellers. But until then,
as your Menno, tonight at the board meeting Cincinnati Bordevich Ocasion,
(01:00):
that's going to be a big powwow. How and where
to increase taxes based upon the voter's okay. It could
be a seven mil property tax, it could be an
eight mil property tax, could be an earn income tax
spanning five years at zero point seventy five percent on
top of everything else. So if someone's rich, like Tony Bender,
he'd be paying an additional about one thousand dollars a
(01:20):
year in income tax to this school board. Right now,
property taxes are not so popular, but let's face it,
income taxes are as Many residents of the city don't
pay income tax, but we all pay a property tax.
So let's see where Steve Gooden is on this. Steve Gooden,
a great lawyer in the Tristate, also was on Cincinnati
City Council.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I think you live in the Clifton area.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So when this thing is on the ballot in November,
Steve Gooden, are you in favor of the seven mil,
the eight mil or the earned income tax? Rich guys
like you would pay a bundle. Give me a full report,
which one do you like?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
If any I don't.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Like, I don't like anygether to be candid. This's a
kind of game. I'm not I don't know that I'm
as a rich guy. But I'll tell you that if
they particularly go that earnings tax way, I think that's
going to be a deeply, deeply unpopular That will be
a very cynical move on their part, because you're right,
probably roughly forty percent of the city, if not more,
it really doesn't pay income taxes because of their income level.
(02:19):
So that would be one that would target directly people
like me, And it's really who frankly don't use the schools.
You know, I don't semi gets to the CPS because
I'm concerned with the quality of what they do. And lucky,
I'm in a position where I can, I can have
other options, but deeply unpopular. And I'm telling you there's
great fatigue on property taxes, not just here but statewide.
(02:41):
You know, we're one of the few few, but one
of the states that doesn't have any kind of relief
for senior citizens. There's a homestead exemption in a lot
of states, we don't really have a meaningful one in Ohio.
There's a movement statewide, as you know, to do away
with property taxes all together as a mechanism to fund schools. Particularly.
It's something that's been that the Court's been wrestling with
(03:03):
for many, many, many years. But look, my sense is
everybody's fatigued. I mean, we know the Children's Services Levey
is probably going on, and that's not an insignificant ask.
So there's going to be a lot of talk right now.
And I think between the Children's Services Levy, they're probably
being a property tax, Lovey. It has to be a
property tax. The school board is probably going to give
(03:23):
this income tax option a serious look. There's only a
handful of school income taxes in Cincinnati area. Wyoming has one,
it believe in the Indian Hill and Marymount have them.
But there's not been a city of this size of
Cincinnati that's actually done an education based income tax in
a long, long, long time. So it will be a
major adjustment for people if they do it. It will
(03:46):
not be good for business. It will affect not just
city residents but people who have their businesses in the city,
and that's a crucial part of it. So if you
live in Madeira but work downtown, you're going to be
paying for CPS schools on top of that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
An addition to an addition, addition to madeir schools at
wherever you live. If you and they're going to be
very aggressive collecting the income tax and people like you
because you're a Putts, you live in the city, have
an income, don't send your kids to public schools, but
you bring up the children's services Levy. I'm looking at
my recent tax bill from Jill Schiller, who's the as
(04:21):
you know, the the hoornor or the treasure of the
Treasure of Hamilton County. Here's what I pay for you
ready for this list. I pay for the Joint Vocational School.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
What is that, Well, that's where they teach trades and
stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
How about the County General Fund, We know what that is.
More or less, I pay for the public library. I
paid for the Family Services and Treatment Levee. I paid
for the Health Hospital Care Engine levee. I pay for
the mental health levee. I pay for the Developmental Disabilities levee.
I pay for the park levee. I pay for the
Crime Information Center Levee. I pay for the Children's Services Levey.
(05:02):
I pay for the Senior Services Levey and the zoo.
On top of all that, an addition of my school district,
which is Indian Hill Schools, which are pretty good. In
addition to my township how many levees at number one,
levees never go down to defeat correct, And number two,
why don't I have so many levees?
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, it just happened over the years. And look, it's
a terrible way to do business. I mean, it's something
that it's not just Cincinnati, unfortunately, there's a lot of
big metro areas in the state that have just increasingly
offloaded all these public services onto uh, you know, onto
the homeowners. And they know they can do it. And
as you pointed out, they know that there are people
who aren't paying income taxes or paying property taxes because
(05:43):
they're runners, are on fixed incomes or on public assistance.
They can vote these things in UH, and people like
you and me who want to question where the money's
going and whether we really need them or whether it's
fair our voices get drowned out. And it's very very
rare that you actually see an organized anti levee political
campaign in this area. I mean typically when they go
(06:05):
to these things, they have corporate money, they have nonprofits
behind them, they have dark money and five to one
c threes and fours supporting the campaigns, and anybody who
wants to raise any kind of voice and opposition get
swamped out. So you have this kind of weird situation
where you have people like you know, myself or Tom
Brickman over and out look at who's done this for
(06:25):
years and tried to oppose these levees and educate people.
We're supposedly fighting for the wealthy class, but we're the
ones who are underfunded when it comes to the political
camp day because all these people who all the vendors,
all the contractors, all the people who get money off
these levees, they come out real hard and they spend
money to get them passed and push through. And so
(06:46):
it's a grim situation I think for taxpayers.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And looking at the twelve special levees that we voted on,
the most expensive is children's services, and now, according to
Alisha Reese and others, that's going to be doubled because
there's so many children with that functional parents who pay
for all that.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I look at my recent tax bill.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm paying for vocational schools, I'm paying for the library,
I'm paying for drug treatment, I'm paying for mental hospitals,
I'm paying for developmental disabilities. I'm paying for the parks
that I never attend. I'm paying for the nine to
one to one center, I'm paying for children's services about
the double I'm paying for senior services. Hell, maybe I
need a few of those services. Then I'm paying for
(07:25):
the zoo, which I've never been to. So those are
the things that I'm paying for now. Secondly, I'm glad
you brought that up in the school system. I had
on Eve Bolton about a week ago. She's on the
school board and she's somewhat functional, she has lucid moments,
and she was a teacher at Wyoming for like twenty
five or thirty years, and she gave me some stats
in the school district. Are you ready for some facts?
(07:48):
William Augley thirty four five hundred kids. But I've got
thirty four thousand, five hundred. There's about three thousand that
are chronically homeless. There's two thousand who have US special needs,
and each one needs a special needs program. That's about
five thousand. Add on top of that about four thousand
who have language difficulties. It's called EESL English Second Language,
(08:12):
and they're seventy seven to zer languages and different dialects
in the school system. So you got about add up
those numbers there's about eight or nine thousand kids. Either
they're either homeless, they have special needs, or English is
the second language. They can't understand what teachers are saying.
That means every kid's got to have someone with them
(08:32):
to kind of translate what's being said. That's about nine
thousand kids. Of the rest, about forty eight percent or
chronically absent from school. Add on top of that, seventy
percent of black boys are chronically absent. So I said
to her, twenty five thousand or so per year per kid,
and Cincinnati publics are twenty five thousand, and you have
(08:55):
situation eight to nine thousand either are not present, or
have special needs, or understand what's being said, or homeless.
You can and a child's not responsible. If they're homeless,
you can imagine how kids life is. If you're homeless,
you measure when the kid's life. If you have special needs,
you can imagine what a kid's life is like when
you can't understand the English, have no idea what's being said.
(09:15):
And then that's about nine thousand of the thirty four thousand,
and of the rest a chunk almost half are chronically absent.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Do you want to pay for that?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
I mean, no, you don't want to pay for that,
and more importantly, you don't want to send your functional
kids into that situation. And you know, I hear a
lot of people in my neighborhood a little over here
in clipping new brag, but ah, I send my kids
to CPS much. Yeah, but you send your kids to
Walnut Hills where you have to test in, or SCPA
or the Fairbee School. There are some good you know,
some some pockets, some really good schools here, but by
(09:46):
and large, the CPS is being forced to serve as
those teachers are being forced to serve as social workers,
not educators. And it is a hard thing to pay for,
and it's a hard thing to stomach, and it raises
real questions. But we know what, just what the hell
we're doing here? Because I mean, you're right when you're
talking about like upwards of you know, three to four
percent or maybe more of the students that don't even
(10:06):
really speak English, aren't fluent in English. What's that going
to do to the overall instruction in any given classroom.
Of course, you're going to be teaching down to the
people who are who are struggling the most. So it's
not a recipe for success. It's a really hard thing
to defend. I do feel for a lot of these
teachers that I really feel for a lot of these
kids who have been placed in this awful position by
their parents. But you know, right now, it's going to
(10:30):
be a very hard ask for people. But I predict
it's one of these versions is going to go on
that levee or on the ballot tonight. I can smell it, and.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
It's going to pass. Right If it doesn't pass, of course,
what choice do you have you vote for it. I
don't think a CPS levee has failed in a long time.
It's going to pass, and then you kick the ball
down the road. You're going to still have large number
thousands of kids that are home. It's not their fault.
Thousands of kids of special needs, not their fault. Thousands
of kids don't show up in thousands of kids that
(10:58):
don't speak in the English.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That is it's daycare.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
You send your kid the most of the skills, probably
eighty percent of the schools and CPS our daycare. And
then they get to be eighteen years old and then
they get a piece of paper, Okay, you graduated, go
into the world.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Then what happens, Well, you have a piece of paper
that isn't worth anything. They have no skills. We do
have excellent vocational skills, but they're not particularly aggressive and
pushing kids into that vocational path. You know, you notice
that you pay that in your property taxes every year.
They do a really bad job, I think in my
view of selecting kids and putting them on that track.
(11:34):
But at the end of the day, of course, it's
all going to pass because I mean, you know, a
lot of the people who are voting for the stuff
aren't going to pay for it. I mean, my daughters
are lucky enough to go to Ursuline Academy, and if
I could have voted that you paid that tuition, I
would have, you know, I mean, that's just human nature.
You know, if you're not paying it, why not. That's
another problem that's unfortunately what's going on.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I bring this up to Eve Bolton, which is the
Boucher program. I would assume you know what's going on
in life. You can get thousands of dollars every year
from the State of Ohio for your kids not to
go to CPS, to go to Urthline.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
And she says that's not fair. What would you say
about that one?
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Well, I'm just saying here, here's the thing. I think
I pay enough taxes and as there's a certain point
when you're at chute because your children is just like
like you know, picking your doctor or picking your lawyer
or picking you know whatever. You're a consumer and if
you don't like the product, you ought to be allowed
to pull at least some of your money away and
to try to do something with that and to try
(12:31):
to like you know, look out for your own kids
at a certain point in time. So you know, it's
just not you know, like like Eva say, I've known
her for years. She's one of the more seen people.
But like they they in their mind, the charter school
concept and the voucher concept is just evil and it's
depriving them of everything. And the other thing, the school
board is being incredibly aggressive these days and going after
(12:54):
property tax valuations at the border Revision are really really
being aggressive like never I like I've never seen MI
twenty some years of practice, and particularly on these older
commercial buildings, you know, wanting these in my view, very
inflated values, and if you've pushed back, you're kind of
portrayed as like a tax cheat or something of that nature.
You know, they have to understand that this is all
(13:15):
part of the puzzle about why people want to do
business here, particularly out of town companies that might want
to invest here. They look at us like we're crazy.
If you go up to Columbus, I can tell you
Columbus is growing. For all its problems. They're growing at
a much faster rate than we are. And it's because
the school board and their warriors are at the table
ever at the beginning of any kind of conversation with
a new business that wants to come in, where they
(13:37):
talk about abatements and or and what the tax burden
is going to be. Here. It's very adversarial, not just
with the taxpayers, not just against people like me who
might want to send their kids to parochial schools, but
also against just the property owners, particularly commercial property owners.
It's a really nasty environment right now.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Is save goodin When you were on city council you
dealt with us. I'm looking at a story from the
Los Angeles Times. The headline is badge to worse. Chief
of Police says to the city of Los Angeles, we
need four thousand more cops immediately. They're four thousand cops short.
When I look at NYPD, they're about five thousand cops short.
(14:15):
When I look at our city of Cincinnati, they're about
two to three hundred cops short.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Can't cover the shifts. The defund the police movement is
alive and well.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
For those who say we don't have to defund the police,
Cincinnati has defund the police movement. It's called not even
enough cops and we're in the hell out of them
and they want to get out as soon as possible.
And in LA the big city Chicago, they are four
thousand cops short. Also, it's called defund the police by
making their job so difficult that young Americans don't want
to sign up to do that kind of work. And
(14:46):
so I understand from your law practice you often find
yourself in Los Angeles. Please explain what happens to a
city like New York that has about a mile and
a half of homeless on forty second Street. To Los Angeles,
they're and cops short, which is a crisis. Cincinnati two
to three hundreds short, it's a crisis. There could have
been a terrible beat down during the music festival over
(15:08):
the weekend but no cops are patrolling, and secondly, no
videos arise yet, so we don't know what happened. What
is your experiences in Los Angeles when they're four thousand
cops short, much like Cincinnati.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Well, let me tell you there are whole sections of
downtown Los Angeles right now that you don't go to.
I mean, it's actually worse than New York in my
view in terms of the homeless encampments. I mean, there
are whole city blocks that are taken up with homeless encampments, tents,
things of that nature. It's absolutely horrifying. You know, there's
(15:43):
open their drug dealing, there's people using drugs out in
the open. I've seen people shooting up, shooting things into
their veins, you know, while they're there. It's just a terrible, terrible,
terrible situation. And it's not just in downtown. You can
go to places even near Beverly Hills, you know, and
find homeless encampments there where they either don't have the
(16:04):
will or the resources to break them up, and it's
just what happens. And I'll take you here. I mean,
I know the city's line is, we're about one hundred
and fifty two hundred cops short. We're probably more like
four hundred cops short because they are not represent that
compliments of two thousand and five. And you know, we
have a lot more residents and a lot more things
going on downtown. So I mean he he said. Ken
(16:25):
Kobert says this all the time. There are knights when
there's only two or three officers patrolling the entirety of
over the Rhine just because of staffing. So when something
bad happens, they you know, they just don't have the people. Well,
the Democrats are a diffle situations. The Democrats, Steve good
are defunding the police. They don't call it that because
politically that's not saleable. But by not hiring cops, by
disrespecting cops, by not promoting cops, by having massive amounts
(16:49):
of overtime, good for the wallet, bad for the mind
and the heart and the soul of a cop. They're
defunding the police through a different mechanism. And that's because
they make being a police officer very difficult in every
major America. Steve Gooden, we got to run great conversation. Well,
look forward tonight to the vote.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I predict it's going to be an income tax to
tax guys like you and Tony Bender as opposed to
property taxes but are fundamentally unpopular.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
I absolutely agree. Thank you for the time, and God bless.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
You and God bless America. Steve Gooden, lawyer and also
a former council member and Moore. Let's continue with more
Red Spaseball tonight on news radio seven hundred WLW.
Bill Cunningham News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com